Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Walking on Eggshells And Elephant Toothpaste; Fun with Science

We did have a few science experiments planned a few weeks ago that we had never gotten around to doing so I suggested to the boys that we take advantage of our time at home and work on those today.

We walked on eggs!

I was so nervous to try this experiment but the eggs we bought for it were about to expire and, just in case we didn't break them, I really wanted to be able to use them in recipes and not let them go to waste.

The boys started by squeezing an egg in their hand as hard as they could. They were pretty surprised when they couldn't break them.

Look how white his fingers are from squeezing so hard!

We then laid out a dollar store shower curtain on the kitchen floor and two dozen eggs. The boys took off their socks and with assistance took turns gently stepping on one carton of eggs. They made sure to apply even pressure and gradually shift their weight to the other foot.

The eggs don't break!

Success! We were completely successful both times. Alec chose to watch and not participate since he was afraid the eggs would break and he'd have to have another shower.

After the egg experiment we moved the curtain to the table and pulled out the stuff we needed to make elephant toothpaste.

We put 4 oz. of a highly concentrated hydrogen peroxide solution (like the kind hairdressers use, not the kind you can buy at the grocery store!) into a 2 liter bottle of soda. You can purchase the peroxide at beauty supply stores but I bought mine here on Amazon.

Adding the peroxide to the bottle using a funnel
and latex gloves

We added a few drops of liquid dish soap and food coloring and then gently swished it around to mix them.

In a separate cup we mixed a packet of dry yeast with 4 tablespoons of very warm water.

Once the yeast was mixed well we poured it into the bottle and watched the yeast react with the peroxide.

The reaction starts immediately

It bubbles and foams and eventually makes it way out of the bottle. The bottle gets warm since it's an exothermic reaction and Ian and I discussed how it works.

It took a while to reach the top of our bottle

Overflowing!

It was really neat to watch. The boys were a bit disappointed that not a lot of foam made it's way out of the bottle. We should have used a 1 liter bottle like the recipe called for, or else doubled the other ingredients, but it was still a lot of fun and frankly it was less messy this way!